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Tom Burwell - Interim CEO Podcast


Lord Nigle said:
This perpetual myth about our location being an issue needs to stop. We’ve got a massive fan base outside of the North East. The trains and roads attest to this on match days. A lot of people from The North East are working and living elsewhere. We also have supporters in other countries whilst not attending on a regular basis contribute through club shop purchases .
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We absolutely do have thousands of fans outside of the North East, and always will have - I am one of them, but that isn't the same as attracting people to visit for corporate sponsorship jollies.
 
DonaldDownTheWing said:
I’d pay for an “economy premium” as Burwell put it, in the south stand. If they did go with 2 tiers in an extended south stand, I’d love a Quinn’s style bar in there similar to where the BCB is in the north.

Open early/late enough to show the early/late kick off before/after ours, some street food you can buy, a cash bar with pints in glasses. Stairs would mean you can purchase the add on whether you’re upper or lower tier.
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Their idea of economy premium is £1450 + vat by the way
 
Wearson said:
and folk on here are still advocating that we do nothing in case we don’t keep improving, dear me.
To spell it out, if you stand still in the Premier league you will invariably go backwards.
Hospitality areas can be ( and have been in the past) easily mothballed. The extension and corporate areas will be smartly financed.
Our current board are not the over promoted, under qualified types of previous recent generations. Have a bit of faith in them and the new Sunderland that we live in, stop being negative, micy minnies 🤣
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There’s room to do things differently from other prem clubs.

It’s not a race to the bottom.

Rinsing the absolute maximum out of fans to improve cash flow doesn’t have to be the answer. It ends up with every seat costing the same (like man united) and no concessions for young / old and membership schemes for people scrambling for the last few general sale tickets (like the mags).

They boot season ticket holders out of halfway line tickets and make the areas corporate and then they sell all this shite to fan bases and call it progress towards improvement and growth.

The only thing that improves is the bottom line and the cash value of the club. Before you know it, your club isn’t your club anymore, it’s some daytrippers day out ticked off a list.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Even if it does, I want nowt to do with it. I’m a fan not a customer.

So far the off the pitch stuff has been fantastic but I didn’t enjoy listening to the podcast as you can see the direction of travel and it’s all about growth / revenue and more money.
 
RTGAdmin said:
I have no problem with us extending corporate facilities and also attracting "tourist" fans too watch us, I don't think either is a bad thing at all, as long as this doesn't impact and drive out our core base of fans. The club needs to serve both groups, and also needs to be aware that if the football side becomes less successful only one of those groups will remain.

If they get too obsessed with the corporate side I can ultimately see that being damaging, especially given our geographical location - we are never going to attract the volume that clubs in London/Manchester/Liverpool/Birmingham can in the same way that we don't attract industry headquarters/head offices to the area.
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I agree, it's a fine balance, and it is hard to see how Sunderland can build the same corporate business as the big London clubs.

But here is a surprisingly large North East business community, who at the moment gravitate to Newcastle, which Sunderland could take, and grow, with a much better offering. Clearly Banks of the Wear is a big part of this. If Sunderland can develop a genuinely top class match day offering that business is there for the taking.

They are also clearly targeting fans who live abroad and who will fly into the region once or twice a season for a premium match package, probably against one of the other clubs with an international fandom.

I am confident that the board have a plan to make Sunderland a top 10/8 Premier League club in the next 24th months. The team performances on the pitch need to match that, but the performance culture is in place from top to bottom to achieve that

I have said this before but they should teach the KLD takeover, the strategy and financial structure on MBA programmes. That is how smart these guys are. And I say that as someone who graduated top of his MBA class a long time ago
RedandWhiteRebel said:
Getting the younguns in is vital because you can guarantee when we got through another lean patch it will be the core support who continue to attend and not people paying hefty prices from around the world to come and watch one match.
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Agreed, and creating a pathway for young local players into the first team only adds to the excitement

A pipeline of new players and a pipeline of new customers/fans.
 
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Only 20 minutes into it but two immediate observations...

1. He talks of our expected income for this season (and next) and then compares it with the Mags in a non-Europe (or Champions League, anyway) season. We aren't Newcastle and nor should we want to be...in any form, including the way they treat their fans.

2. Also - a few mentions about the existing fan base, and the fact that most of our current revenue comes from people / business from within a 50 miles radius of the stadium.

Far more talk about taking the brand overseas and creating more interest in places like Africa, etc.

There's an obvious gap there - it's people who live in the UK but not in the north-east. We have a good proportion of those already but they mostly (like I) have family links to the City.

In this day and age, there are plenty of people prepared to travel to watch PL football, whether that is as a one-off, or because they've chosen a team at a young age and decided that they'll never get a ticket for Liverpool but might get to witness matches live at another, more accessible, club.
 
Can see why people were put off by how they talk but it was hardly some technical business lingo like :lol:

We've gone from people like Donald and someone who wears pink trousers to Kyril and this bloke.
 
I wonder how the club will reflect on 76 yards. One of our best seasons in recent memory, yet they never sell out and have to flog many as just the seat. The price point looks off to me.

If we expanded I’m sure that the club would be looking to do that kind of offering on a larger scale, but £150-£180 makes more sense for a padded seat, pie and access to a lounge with a paid bar.
 
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LambethMackem said:
I wonder how the club will reflect on 76 yards. One of our best seasons in recent memory, yet they never sell out and have to flog many as just the seat. The price point looks off to me.

If we expanded I’m sure that the club would be looking to do that kind of offering on a larger scale, but £150-£180 makes more sense for a padded seat, pie and access to a lounge with a paid bar.
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I see a definite lack of value in that this is not a plausible meal they serve - just pie and chips in a cardboard box. A few extra quid spent on food and the value would look better.
 
LambethMackem said:
I wonder how the club will reflect on 76 yards. One of our best seasons in recent memory, yet they never sell out and have to flog many as just the seat. The price point looks off to me.

If we expanded I’m sure that the club would be looking to do that kind of offering on a larger scale, but £150-£180 makes more sense for a padded seat, pie and access to a lounge with a paid bar.
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Given that my season card for next year is just shy of £2400 (just shy of £130/match), that's not going to happen. At best, they'll narrow it the gap between categories so that Cat A comes down to around £225.
 
the sleeping giant said:
Only 20 minutes into it but two immediate observations...

1. He talks of our expected income for this season (and next) and then compares it with the Mags in a non-Europe (or Champions League, anyway) season. We aren't Newcastle and nor should we want to be...in any form, including the way they treat their fans.

2. Also - a few mentions about the existing fan base, and the fact that most of our current revenue comes from people / business from within a 50 miles radius of the stadium.

Far more talk about taking the brand overseas and creating more interest in places like Africa, etc.

There's an obvious gap there - it's people who live in the UK but not in the north-east. We have a good proportion of those already but they mostly (like I) have family links to the City.

In this day and age, there are plenty of people prepared to travel to watch PL football, whether that is as a one-off, or because they've chosen a team at a young age and decided that they'll never get a ticket for Liverpool but might get to witness matches live at another, more accessible, club.
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Fair point on the exile / UK market but he’s not saying ‘we want to be like Newcastle’ he’s just pointing out their revenues are way ahead of ours, but that shows the potential and we need to be aiming to close that gap
 
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